# Abbott:2017 — GW170817, the binary neutron star

**Citation.** B. P. Abbott *et al.* (LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Virgo
Collaboration), "GW170817: Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary
Neutron Star Inspiral", *Physical Review Letters* **119**, 161101 (2017).

**Access.** Open access. Strain data and the full parameter release are
public at <https://gwosc.org/events/GW170817/>.

## What this reference supports in the treatise

The gravitational-wave experiment chapter (the first multimessenger event),
the compact-star chapter (neutron-star radii and the equation of state), and
the quantum-gravity-status chapter, where the coincidence of the
gravitational-wave and gamma-ray arrival times bounds the difference between
the speed of gravity and the speed of light.

`../data/Abbott_2017.csv` holds the event's published parameters.

## Provenance

- **Fetched from GWOSC's own event API**,
  <https://gwosc.org/eventapi/json/GWTC-1-confident/> (entry GW170817), by
  `tools/bibcheck/build_gwosc.py`. Medians with 90% credible bounds.
- Masses are source-frame.

## Caveats

- The component masses depend on the spin prior; GWOSC reports the low-spin
  result. A chapter quoting a mass must say which prior it means.
- The 40 Mpc luminosity distance is the gravitational-wave measurement. The
  host galaxy NGC 4993 gives an independent redshift, and it is the
  *combination* that makes the standard-siren Hubble measurement — do not
  present the GW distance alone as a Hubble constant determination.